“Whatcha reading Dinky?” Sunset Shimmer asked as she settled into a cushioned chair beside the bed where Diamond Tiara lay in a half awake, half asleep state. The unicorn made herself comfortable and smiled. She actually enjoyed this time spent with the girls.

“A letter from Daring Do,” Dinky replied, not looking up from the letter. “I keep meaning to write her a letter, but I don’t know what to say and then I keep forgetting.”

Piña snorted and made a dismissive gesture with her hoof. “We’ve lived a more exciting life than Daring Do. We’ve been on a cursed island full of shadow wolves led by a scary crystal lich. We were there when the end of the world almost happened.”

“Yeah,” Dinky sighed wistfully. “I don’t know if that was fun exciting like the Daring Do books though. That was scary exciting and not in a good way.”

“Yeah Dinks. And you summoned a swarm of demon bugs. That makes you scarier than most Daring Do villains,” Piña remarked as she rolled over on her back. “My teats are growing.”

The sudden announcement caused the room to go silent for a moment, a painful uncomfortable silence only interrupted by Diamond Tiara’s soft snuffly breathing. It was the sort of awkward moment that only existed between girls; Sunset Shimmer was reminded of a human Pinkie Pie suddenly talking about her period and that wasn’t a happy fun time party.

“Piña… I dunno about you sometimes. You have these moments where you are a great sister, but then you have these moments when you are too much like your sister,” Dinky said as she set down the Daring Do letter.

“Well I’m sorry… we can’t all stay perfect, cute, and little forever. They’ve grown. Gotten a little bit larger. Gotten darker. And now, when I move around or play on the playground, I’m all worried about other ponies seeing them and it makes me feel nervous and ashamed and I don’t know why,” Piña grumbled as she rolled over on her belly and hid herself. “I find myself caring about what I’m showing off. I keep trying to make sure my tail is in just the right spot and I close my legs when I sit now and I never cared about any of this before.”

“Piña, we all go through that. Usually, we go through a heat cycle once we start to feel these things. We feel all awkward about these feelings and it troubles us, and then maybe one day, we happen to notice a pony we like and we actually want them to see what we have-”

“No!” Piña interrupted in a loud whisper, cutting Sunset Shimmer off.

“Was there a colt that you wanted to have see what you had?” Dinky asked, blinking at Sunset Shimmer, her question full of the sort of frank honesty only a foal could have.

“Only one,” Sunset admitted, her eyes suddenly darting about nervously.

“Who?” Dinky questioned, looking on with foalish interest.

“Um, that’s a secret,” Sunset Shimmer stated.

“It isn’t our father, is it?” Piña inquired, raising her eyebrow.

“No,” Sunset Shimmer answered, shaking her head softly.

“Then who?” Dinky demanded. “If you don’t tell me I’ll ask Bartleby about all of the embarrassing things you must do while you are asleep.”

Panicking, Sunset Shimmer recoiled back in her chair. “You wouldn’t dare! Ugh, I’ve heard stories about you two. You little monsters.”

Dinky and Piña both exchanged a glance and then began to giggle with one another as they both stared at Sunset Shimmer with wicked smiles filled with the promise of mischief spread across their muzzles.

“Bartleby would never betray me,” Sunset Shimmer said confidently, eyeing the two giggling foals full of prankish mischief as she spoke.

“Is he your butler?” Dinky asked, suddenly serious.

“I dunno… he’s… my assistant and my friend,” Sunset stammered.

“Father says it is important for us to think about our help and what they mean to us,” Dinky stated, looking thoughtful. “Like Semillon. She’s the cook. But she’s so much more. She’s very kind to us and makes us treats that take a lot of effort and work… she doesn’t have to make those treats, she does it because she cares for us and wants us to be happy.”

“No, don’t touch, it’s tender!” Loch Skimmer said as she skittishly scooted away from a recently awoken Sparkler. “Oh is it ever tender. On the way home as I was flying, I could feel the wind tugging on it, and oh pony farts did it ever hurt, I had to slow down and then I landed for a while… and then my dock started convulsing and twitching and then I had like the most powerful orgasm I’ve had in a while as my filly bits clenched up and gave themselves a squeeze on the side of the road.”

“Ugh… I’m not listening to this!” Bucky grunted, waving his talons at Loch Skimmer and trying to shoo her out of the living room.

“But daddy… don’t you want me to be happy?” Loch Skimmer asked, giving Bucky a well practiced hurt look.

“More than anything. But I don’t want to know about your filly bits or whatever it is you might be doing that makes you happy, that’s your business,” Bucky grumbled as he gave Loch Skimmer a sullen stare. “I am painfully aware that all of you are having hot noisy sex… I just try to pretend that I am not aware of it.”

“The Painfully Pierced Pony?” Berry questioned, looking thoughtful. “We should totally go together,” she suggested.

“It used to be in somepony’s basement, they only recently moved into a shop on street level,” Loch Skimmer said helpfully. “You know father, I really hope that all of you are having hot noisy sex… sex has been shown to be a good for mares during pregnancy. Helps with bonding, pain management, and feelings of self worth as most mares often struggle with body dysmorphophobia issues.”

“What?” Bucky asked, giving Loch Skimmer a blank stare.

“A feeling of fear associated with a specific part of the body that they feel is somehow defective, ugly, flawed, and it causes anxiety, fear, and panic. I was reading about it in a sexual health textbook I checked out through the interlibrary loan feature that allows me to get books from a university,” Loch Skimmer explained patiently.

“You’re reading university textbooks for kicks and giggles?” Berry Punch asked, suddenly looking very concerned.

“Yes,” Loch Skimmer said bashfully. “I also practice taking the sample tests found in the back of some of them to help me learn the material better.” The charcoal grey filly blushed. “I feel like a dark cloud was taken away from the sun and now the world is so full of light and happiness for me. Berry Punch, you made the sun shine for me. For all the jokes I make, I take this very seriously.”

“Thistle is very sensitive about her size,” Bucky said thoughtfully, his gaze turning towards the crackling fire. “I worry about her so much. She is very dear to me. I think I am going to go to bed and see if I can sleep. Maybe cuddle a bit with Thistle and tell her how attractive I find her big round belly.”

“You know, associating words expressing attraction with pleasurable conditioning stimuli is beneficial. Telling a mare she’s pretty is one thing, telling a mare she’s pretty as you give her an orgasm leaves a lasting impression,” Loch Skimmer said helpfully. “Given enough time and conditioning, just telling her she’s pretty is enough to get her hot and wet as a conditioned response.”

“Loch Skimmer… I hope you never use this knowledge for evil,” Bucky stated.

Creeping about carefully and using her magic to make herself completely silent, Sparkler carefully moved around the stacked crates and shipping containers in the railyard depot. Alone, not trusting any other pony to be as sneaky as she was, she moved soundlessly through the dark, the hair on her back standing up as she drew nearer to her prey. She could see a light in the small warehouse that had been recently constructed and a wagon was waiting outside.

A wagon that shouldn’t be there.

With a quiet cast of her magic, she caused the wheels of the wagon to seize up. She could see a few crates in the back of it already. She didn’t know if it was stolen goods or not, and she didn’t care. The wagon was inside the fence and didn’t belong here. She stealthily moved after the owner, who was certain to be inside of the warehouse.

Looking around, she saw a small open window high up above, it swung back and forth in the breeze, squeaking faintly, and she saw the main doors opened slightly, allowing light to spill out. Somepony had left the window open, but she doubted it was the main point of entry, it was far too small.

Creeping along the side of the building, Sparkler made ready to rush the door, her muscles tensing, her Shivers symptoms intensifying. There was only one way to fix that… as she entered the door she turned to stone and gave up all efforts of stealth. She stomped in with her hooves thundering.

“THIS IS A BUST!” she roared in a gravelly voice.

In the shadows, Sparkler saw a darkened figure lift his head out of a crate and look at her. Sparkler was already moving, running with alarming speed for something made out of living stone.

“Damn you!” the figure shouted as he leapt down off of the crates. He moved swiftly, gracefully, he moved like a dancer.

Sidestepping, Sparkler moved to cut off his escape. As she did so, the figured scooped up something small with his foreleg and threw it at her. That something screamed as it hurtled through the air. Shocked, Sparkler reached out her mind and caught it with her magic, absolutely flabbergasted that some scumbag had just thrown a foal at her.

As Sparkler began to recover, the dark figure was already near the door. He lobbed another screaming missile at Sparkler, who carefully caught this one in her magic as well. She stood there absolutely stupefied that the dirtbag she was trying to catch had just used foals thrown at her to aid in his escape.

The figure was now long gone, and Sparkler was left with two shrieking foals held carefully in her telekinesis. She stayed in her stone form, realising the danger might not yet be over, and she eyed the two foals carefully, both of whom were wearing what looked like black pyjamas. She heard the flutter of wings and deep within her barrel, Sparkler growled.

Sitting in the living room of Derpy’s old house, which was now a makeshift police crash pad of sorts, Sparkler studied the two foals, both of whom were clearly terrified. She had given them both cups of hot soft apple cider and a plate of crackers and peanut butter.

Both were in fact, wearing pyjamas, the teddy bears and stars were visible under the cheap black dye. One was a unicorn, the other was a little pegasus, and Sparkler had an idea on who might have opened the window and then opened the door from the inside.

“So let me get this right,” Sparkler said in a soft voice as she tried to control her spasms. She looked at the pegasus filly. “You’re Singsong,” she stated, trying to smile. She then turned to the little unicorn colt. “And you, you’re Brass Note.”

The foals nodded. The filly, trembling, filched a cracker covered in peanut butter from the plate and stuffed it into her mouth. The colt was still far too terrified to do anything but stare at Sparkler.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Sparkler promised.

“But he’ll hurt us,” Brass Note whimpered. “We’ve seen what happens when foals misbehave. He’s shown us, over and over.”

Scowling, Sparkler felt a hot rush of anger. “He can’t hurt you… I have you and I will protect you,” she said in a soft reassuring voice to the foals. “Tell me his name. Tell me his cutie mark. Help me catch him so he can’t hurt others.”

“We don’t know his name,” Singsong responded, spraying cracker crumbs everywhere. “Everypony calls him daddy… he makes us call him that.”

“And he doesn’t have a cutie mark… just a big burned place that looks really gross,” Brass Note added as he fearfully took a cracker from the plate and then eyed the cup full of hot cider. He stuffed the cracker into his mouth and crunched.

“He found me when after I lost my parents. He’s found all of us. My parents were traveling from Fillydelphia to Ponyville. Both of my mothers stuffed me into a hollow spot in a tree and told me to stay quiet while they led the danger away… they never came back,” Singsong said, offering up a bit of an explanation. “Eventually I came out and started to wander around, not knowing what to do. I was starving.”

“And he found you?” Sparkler questioned as the side of her face quivered annoyingly.

The pegasus filly nodded and looked up at Sparkler with wide fearful eyes. “You’re really nice,” Singsong squeaked.

“I try to be,” Sparkler responded. “Sorry if my twitching makes you scared. I can’t help it,” she explained.

“Aw, that’s awful, you’re so nice,” Singsong said, now looking concerned, the fear melting away. “That’s not fair.”

Looking up at Sparkler, his ears pinned back against his skull, the unicorn foal took a deep breath and blinked a few times. “He took a bunch of us in. He keeps us in a cave deep underground where it is really dark. He blindfolds us when he takes us on jobs. He makes us help him steal stuff… food, supplies, candles, lamp oil, stuff like that,” Brass Note reported helpfully. “We don’t know where his hideout is, honest.”

“I believe you,” Sparkler said. “Since you’ve both been such good foals, I’m going to buy both of you some dinner. Go ahead and eat your crackers. Can you tell me just a little bit more?”

“He HATES earth ponies… he occasionally snatches an earth pony foal… he tortures them in front of all of us and makes us watch, telling us that he’ll do this stuff to us if we cross him,” Singsong said.

“Can you tell me what he looks like?” Sparkler questioned, sounding hopeful.

“He’s tan… he has a dark brown mane and tail. He’s a pegasus,” Brass Note answered as he picked up his cider cup and sniffed it.

Feeling frustrated, Sparkler realised the description given matched about half of the pegasi in Ponyville, minus the burned off cutie mark. She felt a powerful spasm ripple over her ribs, causing her whole side to convulse. She watched the foals as they munched crackers, silently wondering what to do with them. She needed to keep them safe. She wanted them happy and secure, they deserved that. She thought about taking them home, but wasn’t sure if that was wise. Diamond Tiara needed peace and quiet, and two new foals in the house would be anything but peace and quiet.

Shivering, Sparkler felt a chill as she realised she was dealing with her first career criminal, her first serious foe, her first true threat. She began to mentally process everything she knew already, and began to try and sort out what little bit of information she had so that maybe she could find an answer or two.

Author's Notes:

And Stoneface now faces her first real super-villain.

Who is responsible for typos, I swear. That fiend!